


Blaulochmühl

by winteryKite



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fakement, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 12:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20639315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winteryKite/pseuds/winteryKite
Summary: Statement of Eleonora Habicht regarding an overgrown mill in her hometown of Mühlenberg.





	Blaulochmühl

Statement of Eleonora Habicht, on the subject of the mills of her hometown in the Magdeburg Börde of northern Germany. Statement given January 21st, 2002.

My parents were farmers. Still are. And even if I fear that which now looms over Mühlenberg, I know that one day I shall return there with a partner, and rejoin the family business of caring for wheat and potatoes and carrots and beets, for chickens and pigs and cows and sheep and the cats that prowl the granaries to keep them free of mice. I will have children and teach them the stories of our community, take them to church every sunday and to learn from the errors of their ancestors. From the bottom of my heart there is nothing that I wish more than for that which drove me out of my hometown, into the world, and, ultimately, to you, into your tower that looms over the city and has its roots deep, deep under it like a tree made of brick and mortar and knowledge, that this is long history by the time they are old enough to understand what I tell them.

You must understand, I do not fear the rot and the decay. If you grow up shoveling dung from the barns into the wheelbarrows from where they ultimately end up on the fields; if you grow up with kitchen waste decomposing into fresh, dark soil, teeming with earthworms and potential life; if you grow up watching the wolves take apart deer, bite by bite, and the remains sagging and mouldering and being host to clouds of flies until all that is left is both the bone and the life the flesh has nourished, if you grow up like that, you do not fear it. You are not disgusted by its existence. It is not the most pleasant part of existence, but it is a key part of it, binding end to beginning and death to life and life to life. It closes the cycle. The cycle itself will change, it will stretch and warp and coil, gain new parts and lose old ones, but it all comes down to the fact that all things end, and from that new life rises, from the smallest to the greatest. Some cycles are shorter, others longer. Even the mountains will wear down and their dust will coat the sea floors and sink into the molten depths of the planet, until, one distant day when those who might have distantly remembered the idea of our existence have been forgotten as well, they will rise again from the depths of the sea.

Sometimes, you have to help things along a bit. Of course the cycle can take care of it on its own, but it makes it easier for us, you see? That's why the stubble fields are burned when the last harvest has been brought in. The cycle is nudged along a bit with the stalks and roots on the soil reduced to ash that will nourish the next seed instead of drawing more nutrients from the soil in an attempt to cling to life and grow again before the frost comes, before we plant the seeds that will slumber through winter in frozen soil and wake when spring melts the blanket that is keeping them safe.

That's why we burn the mills after the last grain has been ground into flour, before the first snowfall, just that the roots of the mills go deep, so deep that the fires cannot reach them, even if the topmost layer has grown enough that a human can explore it. Mills never stop growing.

In a way, it's closer to pruning a tree or other perennial plant than the annual ones we have in rotation on our fields, even if the mills sometimes change from wind-powered to cattle-powered to lightning-powered to water-powered or any other which way from year to year, but we never know which beforehand. The fields we can plan. The mills we have to adapt to.

It's not that difficult, really. If there's no river near the mill will not have water wheels, and a mill in a basin will not have a lightning rod. It's just the way it powers itself that is different. It's still a mill. It still grinds wheat and nuts and bones and seeds and whatever else we feed it.

The swallows had still been there by the time the Nativity of Mary had rolled around that year and the oaks were still holding on to their acorns by the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, so we were expecting a mild, if wet winter from the rain that day. Time enough to mill. And when it rained and rained and rained all the way to St. Ursula's day, we knew that it would snow by the end of October. The mills would have to burn by the day before Apostles Simon and Judas. This is not out of the ordinary, and we know how to deal with soaked mills. We would bring dry kindling and charcoal and tree pitch into the uppermost basement and Jakobinus Eichmüller would seal the cracks to keep it dry and Annamaria Holzfäller would pile the coal and kindling into a pyre that would burn hot and dry enough to consume even the wettest logs, just as the old Sophia Huffschmidt had taught her.

And on the dawn of the day before Apostles Simon and Judas the community would gather and travel from mill to mill, and the quick and nimble among the younger would race in, torch in hand, to light the pyre, and be rewarded with ale and meat, flower crowns and dance requests, and the community would revel into the night by the light of the burning mills. The Eichmühle, located on a hill overlooking the fields of the Weißhaupt and Bachmeier families, was no problem safe for bringing the kindling up through the rainfall while keeping it dry. Neither was the Wiehlmühl down by the river.

But when we reached the Blaulochmühl we found the basin from which it had grown flooded, sails dipping into the waters as they turned with each gust of bitingly cold wind. We could not burn it. Not even with the magnesium torches we had brought because of the rain.

And so we waited for the water to drain. A few days or even some few weeks would not impede the growth of the mill too much. But St. Lukas' day had been, while rainy, mild, and we all knew that the weather had turned on us and instead of a mild winter, it would be a cold one. A  _ bitterly _ cold one. Our only hope was that the basin would either drain by itself or that we could drain it by our combined efforts.

Apostles Simon and Judas brought the first snow. St. Wolfgang's brought another squall of rain. Good for next year, true, but not for us now. All Saints day was warm and we made some headway, and the good father blessed us with a clear and dry, if cold All Souls. But it snowed on St. Hubertus day, and it did not stop. As November passed us by, we tried to deal with the mill as best we could, but our kindling soaked and the torches would not catch the wood, whatever we did. And as December rolled around, the mill froze shut.

The first shingles of the new Eichmühle and Wiehlmühl broke through the ice on St. Julian's, and the Blaulochmühl still stood. The basin in which it stood was so thick with snow that we couldn't see if it had grown new shingles, but Ernst Schreiner and Theodor Ziegler went and dug down for hours on end, Vater Heinrich brought them hot broth come midday and helped as well, and then Theodor's shovel struck something. They prayed for it to be a rock.

It was not.

Seven metres from the old outer wall of the Blaulochmühl, a shingle had come through the ground. And another, and another.

Conversion of Paul was a sunny day, and so were St. Thimotheus and St. Martina. Spring would come early this year and it would be a fruitful one. A fruitful year with two good mills and a slightly younger one, we could have dealt. Ground things by hand instead of entrusting it all to the mills.

A fruitful year with two good mills, that would be difficult. We would need to grind a lot by hand, and leave many things unmilled. If we were unlucky, winter would come early, making us lose even more valuable time. But as February passed, cold and dry, and March, warmer but similarly dry, safe for St. Rosamunde's. April, as it does, does what it wants, but St. Tiberius' day we could see the sheer mass of the new lower level of the Blaulochmühl. The old wind sails were churning, and the lower level revealed not one, but two water wheels, scooping up the mud from which they had grown and depositing it behind them. No water was flowing, but the wheels were, nonetheless, moving.

This is the thing with mills that aren't burned. A lower level four times as big as the previous one and more wheels is tame. A mill that is barely older than a year, in a way, is still tame.

But it's not safe. A mill like this, of course you can still feed it grain and nuts and seeds and bones, but... What you get out, it's not quite right. Sometimes it shifts, sometimes it shimmers, sometimes you notice something is off only when you take the bread out of the oven and cut into it and it bleeds, because the mill isn't sated by grain and nuts and seeds and bones anymore as it grows. It feeds on other things, too, grinds them into what you feed it. But we could deal with only two mills this year. We would have to. Good planning, and the good mills running all hours, all day, from the first harvest onwards. We could do it, and burn down the Blaulochmühl with the others after the last harvest.

While we were still bringing in the last grain that year, Ernst Schreiner had checked by the Blaulochmühl to see if he could lend a hand to Annamaria Holzfäller and Jakobinus Eichmüller, but all he found was that the mill had no doors, and Theodor Ziegler lying on the grass, shingles by his feet, blood on the rock where he had cracked his head open.

We searched for Annamaria and Jakobinus day and night until Theodor's burial, but hide nor hair of them remained.

And so the mill grew, year by year. The following it reached above the trees far enough to grow a lightning rod, and sometimes it churns up ore and gems from the depths.

And now I am here, in the desperate hope that you know how to help us deal with it.

**Author's Note:**

> Mühlenberg itself is fictitious, and I spent way too long trawling the Farmer's Calendar for appropriate dates and what their weather says about coming days/weeks/months.
> 
> Nativity of Mary: September 8th  
Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael: September 29th  
St. Lukas: October 18th  
St. Ursula: October 21st  
Apostle Simon and Apostle Judas: October 28th  
All Saints' Day: November 1st  
All Souls' Day: November 2nd  
St. Hubertus: November 3rd  
St. Julian's: January 9th  
Conversion of Paul: January 25th  
St. Thimotheus: January 26th  
St. Martina: January 30th  
St. Rosamunde: March 11th  
St. Tiberius: April 14th
> 
> I aimed this to be horror. It turned out surreal instead.


End file.
